


A Jimi White Day

by mercurysensei



Series: We Wish You A Jimi Christmas [2]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 17:05:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13979646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurysensei/pseuds/mercurysensei
Summary: Minami Kentarou is grateful on White Day. And maybe a little mischievous, too.





	A Jimi White Day

The sun is just starting to disappear over the river, its stubborn denial shooting out orange and pink beamlike rays to pierce and stain the closely gathered clouds over the city. It is beautiful.

But Minami stares only at his basil plant, Pachi. His mother says he has to prove his responsibility for another living thing before he can get a pet turtle. Someday, Minami looks forward to Pachi Junior. And he would have his best friend, Higashikata Masami, to thank for trusting him with Pachi.

He has so many other reasons to be grateful for Masami, too. Unlike Minami, Masami doesn’t like either Valentine’s Day or White Day. He — quite wisely — considers them wasteful. However, since Minami can’t help his illogical attraction to the finely embossed boxes and luxurious display paper, Masami sportingly agrees to accompany him.

When Masami comes with him again for White Day, Minami wonders if he’s getting greedy. But then Masami is smiling and pointing out how some people are getting tricked by the purchase two sale.

“They’re four-hundred and fifty yen anyway,” Masami explains, his smile bright and lively. It’s almost as beautiful as when he opened up Minami’s secret gift. It almost makes him want to buy two boxes at full price: one for Masami and one for their best girl, Banjiko.

Masami displays his usual sterling frugality and comments, “Since Banjiko gave us Valentine’s chocolate two days late, I feel that she would be invigorated by a similar delay.”

This gives Minami pause. Traditionally, a White Day gift should be of greater value. In Minami’s opinion, this has little to do with gender and everything to do with rewarding the bravery and kindness of the initial gift. He wants to reward everything to do with the exponential swell of joy that came part and parcel with that little package in his shoe locker. And everything to do with making Masami’s face light up again — incandescent enough to warm Pachi through the winter but not so incandescent as to summon moths.

Minami shudders at the thought of moths on his dear friend’s smile. To feel better, he thinks of the ribbon he saved from that day. He wants to tell Masami about it, but points out the sale on pineapple instead. They have a long, heated discussion about how it would be more cost effective to buy an entire pineapple and clean it up, even if the already prepared fruit was on sale. Although Masami is all for saving money -- which Minami acknowledges as a virtue -- the pineapple is on sale because it will go bad soon. Minami is concerned about waste. After determining that they do not know the correct strategy to prepare fresh pineapple and Banji doesn’t pick up his phone to explain, they share expertly cut spears on a bench and bask in the luxury.

Later, as he’s practicing new characters for Japanese, his mind wanders back toward the pretty department store chocolates. He wants to return Banjiko’s gift, but he’s not sure who or where she is. Perhaps she’s from another school.

But Minami can reward Banji, who played a crucial role in Minami’s secret Banjiko gift to Masami. He feels a little bad to have used someone’s real name and he thinks about it over homework. Just before he goes to bed, he decides that she might approve of his generosity in her name; she gave a present to Minami, surely she would want his best friend to smile too

With the realization that he has two arrange two White Day gifts, Minami despairs; he had outgrown most of his shoes and needed new ones, which required an advance on his allowance in addition to washing and polishing his father’s car. Father had also told him to help his little brother with homework, but since he did that anyway, it didn’t count. If he wants to afford something heartwarming and delicious for both Masami and Banji, he must be smart about it.

He flips his pillow over and presses his face into the cool side. It’s refreshing like a windy day on the tennis court and grounding like Masami’s sturdy hair. The more he relaxes, the more he thinks. Although he can afford the cheapest of chocolates just after White Day, it doesn’t feel like an acceptable return. The ingredients are relatively cheap, but making chocolate requires a certain skill that Minami doesn’t have and lacks the time necessary to obtain.

The answer doesn’t occur to him until the next morning, when he is too early for school again. Every morning he sits on the wall near the bike path -- just close enough to the tennis court to hear the steady bounce of tennis balls -- and eats his homemade onigiri. Normally he is more excited to see what filling his mother used, but today, he is curious about the freshman girls. He listens to their conversation about a cookie baking party the week before, and the different designs they were able to make.

Minami beams and takes a bite. Today is spicy pollock and, tomorrow, he is going to make cookies.

At lunchtime he makes his excuses to Masami, who knows that he prefers to study Japanese by himself. He almost feels bad for lying to his best friend and actually feels bad for feeling thrilled about the lie.

It is for Masami’s own sake, really. So Minami panics more than a little bit when he sees Masami at the grocery store. He should have known better than to go to their favorite one! Something hurts to see his best friend examining the prices all by himself. Minami is extra sneaky about it and manages to buy all of the cookie ingredients without getting caught.

But he does put the discounted anpan that he found a few aisles away in Masami’s path, just to make sure that his best friend gets a thrill almost as exciting as his. 

Raw cookie ingredients securely in his mother’s rilakkuma reusable tote, Minami makes his proud way to Daiso for the adorable frivolities that would dress up his cookies like a present. Once there, he hems and haws along the many spools of ribbon and exciting packaging. It would be very easy to accidentally spend too much money at this store, with miles on miles appealing merchandise. If Masami were here, he thinks, he would seek out the most economical option. So instead of the pretty plates and bows, Minami searches for a pack of little baggies that is already cute and comes with its own twist tie.

“All for one-hundred yen,” he says, smiling at the little Stitches that adorn the bag. Masami might find the alien delightfully whimsical, like they could be at times. He rounds the corner to look for the erasers his brother had requested when Masami of all people comes to enter the wrapping aisle.

For a second and only a second, he wishes that his best friend could overlook him the way other people did. In that dimly hopeful moment, he spots some balloons. Minami grabs a handful and, heart beating in his ears, holds them low as he walks out the aisle in the other direction.

He leaves Daiso feeling like a secret agent. If he weren’t so compelled by geology, he might consider international operations. Briefly, he imagines entering a casino with Masami, both of them wearing hyaku-en sunglasses and holding reusable shopping bags.

Minami chuckles and wishes he could tell Masami that bit of hilarity. But that would ruin the surprise, so he settles for telling his brother the next day, while they take turns stirring the dough for the chocolate cookies.

“That’s why you didn’t get the erasers? So lame,” his brother says as he spoons out some dough and concentrates on shaping the cookie. He, too, had received Valentine’s chocolates and didn’t have the money to buy nicer return ones. “I bet he recognized you.”

Because Minami is a little offended, he doesn’t tell his brother that he’s making cookies much too thin. When the timer rings and they open up the microwave oven, his anticipated moment of vindication never comes. Instead, watching his brother’s disappointed face churns his stomach, like he has let down one of his kouhai.

“You can have mine,” he gives his brother the Stitch bag filled with perfect chocolate cookies. “I couldn’t get your eraser, after all.”

Hearing “thank you, Nii-chan,” from his preteen brother is worth having to go back to the grocery store on White Day, even if it comes with a fresh side of guilt. Minami can easily say his visit to that the sardine-packed food market is one of the most terrifying moments of his life. There are no baskets; the cashiers are distressed; someone screams; a salaryman elbows him in the back of the head on the way to the baking chocolate and apologizes, then starts to cry because his wife just might leave him if he doesn’t come back with the deluxe, dark chocolate from Belgium and they don’t have any left here either.

Minami has never been more grateful for his frugal best friend, who would probably not even care that his present is late.

He makes the cookies again, this time while listening to his brother talk about how much his girlfriend liked them. Something in Minami eases. Surely, if a junior high school girl approved, the much easier to please Masami would like them very much. And, well, Banji always wore the same, comforting smile no matter what happened.

That smile is exactly what greets Minami when he shows up the next day after school, smiling sheepishly and holding one of his stitch-bound bag of cookies.

After Banji receives it gracefully, chuckling and muttering something not quite audible, Minami holds up a second bag just like it and asks, “Banji-sensei, could you write this card out to Masami?”

“From Banjiko-chan?” he asks calmly, taking out a magnificent calligraphy pen that Minami immediately covets. 

Minami beams and nods, “she’s very popular.”

Minami thinks he hears Banji mutter with two boring knuckleheads, but it must be a trick of the wind. Banji would never say anything that mean.

The next day, Minami leaves for school before his mother can even pack him an extra onigiri for the morning. Excitement follows him at sunrise, waiting behind every corner and mailbox on the familiar path to Yamabuki and he thinks that, maybe, that’s why people do this. The small gift in his bag repainted his school and the winter scene like the thrilling, textured oils that they saw on their last school trip, marked with bursts of color that leapt across the canvas in emotion: Yamabuki in White.

“That was a very romantic thought, Kentarou,” he tells himself, creeping into the school just as the sun lodges fully in the sky. He covers his giggles with one hand as he slides into the row of lockers next to his. Looking this way and that -- no one to be found -- he opens the tiny door to Masami’s shoe locker. His heart beats loud as he puts Stitch and the cookies neatly between Masami’s indoor shoes.

“Kentarou?” a voice says from behind him. Minami yelps and turns abruptly, trying to shut the small locker door. “Oh no, were you surprised?”

Minami punches a smile onto his own face. “Very surprised. Good morning, Masami,” he searches for an excuse and comes up with, “I arrived to school early, so I decided to check on your shoes. I needed new ones last week, and wanted to see if you did, too.”

“That’s very good of you, Kentarou. I’m impressed that you’re still growing,” Masami answers. Minami notices that both of his friend’s hands are behind his back. It looks like he’s waiting for something.

Minami shakes his head. “You’re here very early too, Masami.”

“Oh,” Masami says, like a realization. “Well, I was hoping to check on your shoes, too. I noticed that you got new ones, and I thought that I would see what they looked like without you wearing them.”

It sounds so very thoughtful when Masami says it, Minami thinks.

“Oh!” Masami continues again. “While I was...checking on your shoes, I noticed this.”

Masami’s hands come into view. The dependable, tennis calloused fingers that had backed him up for so many years are cupping a small nameko bag with a familiar Daiso twist tie. Through the cellophane, Minami sees the many different kind of rocks that can be found on the bank of the river. There are common ones, sure, but nestled among them he can detect some of the flat, smooth stones that they would often gush over together.

Minami smiles so much that his mouth hurts for the effort. Color rises to Masami’s face and he says, “It’s from Banjiko.”

Taking the gift preciously, Minami bows and continues to smile. “What a coincidence, Masami,” he says with a secretive smile. “Look in your shoe locker.”

Masami does, when Minami steps aside. The bag of cookies makes Masami pause, as if he’s not quite sure that this is his actually his locker.

“That Banjiko,” Masami says, handling the Stitch bag delicately. “She’s so thoughtful.”

“She really is,” Minami agrees.

Judging by both of their smiles, Pachi is going to get a little brother very soon.


End file.
